as the orchid dies and the grass goes insane, let’s have one for the lost: met an old man and a tired whore

long ago he edited a little magazine was up in San Francisco during the beat era during the reading-poetry-with-jazz expe… and I remember him because he never retu…

When Jonstone saw me the next 5 a.m. he spun in his swivel and his face and his shirt were the same color. But he said nothing. I didn’t care. I had been up to 2 a.m. drinking and screw...

at North Avenue 21 drunk tank you slept… there was always some guy who would step… way to the crapper and then you would curse him good, set h… he would know enough to either be more c…

he’s 17 . mother, he said, how do I crack an egg? all right, she said to me, you don’t hav… sit there looking like that.

Our 30 minutes was now devoted to scheme training. They gave us each a deck of cards to learn and stick into pur cases. To pass the scheme you had to throw 100 cards in 8 minutes or les...

watch them push the crippled and the inf… in their wheelchairs on to the electric lift which carries them up into the long bus where each chair is locked down

when I was in grammar school my parents were poor and in my lunch bag there was only a peanut butter sandwich.

Meanwhile, there was still Joyce, and her geraniums, and a couple of million if I could hang on. Joyce and the flies and the geraniums. I worked the night shift, 12 hours, and she pawed...

between 2 and 5 p.m. any day and any tim… Wednesday, it’s 20% off for us old dogs approaching the sunset. it’s strange to be old and not feel old

Christmas eve, alone, in a motel room down the coast near the Pacific— hear it?

I was back in L.A. about a week and a h… “Christ, Cecelia, I don’t know what to… “I’m so glad you came when you did. Bil… “What happened?” “He complained of feeling real bad and w…

watch you walking with your machine. ah, you’re too stupid to be cut like gra… you’re too stupid to let anything violat… the girls won’t use their knives on you they don’t want to

we have everything and we have nothing and some men do it in churches and some men do it by tearing butterflie… in half and some men do it in Palm Springs

take a writer away from his typewriter and all you have left is the sickness which started him